


Country Roads, take me Home - Hiking with Friends (but without Friends)

by ChangeGirlYuki



Category: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard - Rick Riordan
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Feelings, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Genderfluid Character, Hiking, M/M, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 22:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12263646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangeGirlYuki/pseuds/ChangeGirlYuki
Summary: Magnus and his friends had been planning to go hiking together. But in the end, it's only him and Alex. Which is fine, really,If Alex just would not act so weird in the evenings...A/N: I suck at summaries, sorry!





	Country Roads, take me Home - Hiking with Friends (but without Friends)

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my part-time flower and full-time beta Stitch! Happy birthday!!!
> 
> I hope, you like my little fic :)

Country Roads, take me Home - Hiking with Friends (but without Friends)

*Disclaimer: I don’t own Magnus Chase and the characters, nor their background story. They belong to Rick Riordan. The plot for this story is entirely mine though. No money is made with this, I just write for fun, comments and kudos. Enjoy!*

*****************************

“I can’t come with you, Odin got a mission for me.”

“I gotta stuff to do.”

“I’ll help him with said stuff.”

“I caught a cold…?” - “What? You can’t catch a cold around here!” - “I got stuff to do then. See ya!”

In the end, Magnus and Alex found themselves alone in the entry hall of Hotel Valhalla, things packed and ready to leave. They had plans to go on a hiking trip with Samirah, Mallory, Halfborn and T. J., but just when they were about to leave, all of them showed up with some not convincing excuse of a task they had to do instead of going on their trip. Magnus would have understood if they wouldn’t be into hiking, but they had decided to go on this trip together, had discussed everything, planned everything and all that.  
Sighing disappointed, Magnus put down his bag and sat down onto one of the couches in the foyer. He had been so happy about this and now…  
“Why do you sit down? We’ve got a bus to catch, Magnus”, interrupted Alex and tapped his index finger onto his watch.  
Frowning, Magnus looked up to the green haired child of Loki. “But, shouldn’t we, like, wait until they can come with us? We planned this together after all…”  
Shaking his head, Alex flipped him the bird. “Who knows when we will have the time for this again. What if the final battle decides to come around next week? If they can’t control their schedule, that’s their problem. I won’t miss this chance. So, are you coming or not?”  
“If you phrase it like that…”, said Magnus, slowly getting up and grabbing his bag. “Let’s go!”  
“Woohoo!”, shouted Alex in agreement and punched into the air. 

********************

Getting out of the bus, Magnus took a deep breath of fresh air. It had been far too long since he had been here. Then again, he had been kind of against this at first because he hadn’t sure if he would not break out into tears when seeing this familiar area and doing those familiar tasks you do while hiking. Another part of him didn’t want to overwrite the good memories he had from when he had been here with his mother. But after thinking hard about it, Magnus came to the conclusion, that his mother would want for him to have fun with his friends and enjoy this trip. And what was wrong with gaining more good memories on this trip? Exactly – nothing!

A deep yawn let Magnus turn around and grin a bit. They had spent the last hours of their bus trip sleeping so that they could hike a bit today and start with the real trip tomorrow. Because there wasn’t a good bus line between Boston and this hiking station, it had taken them the entire afternoon and a part of this morning to get here.  
Right now, Alex looked ready to fall into her bed and sleep for a day straight while Magnus felt like a child on Christmas Eve.  
“We’re here, Alex”, announced Magnus in a very eager and happy tone, not caring that he might sound childish. He was too happy to care.  
“I see that, idiot”, said Alex and waved her hand. “And we need to get going or everybody else will see it too.”  
“Right…”, said Magnus, remembering their plan. 

With einherjar out of four different centuries, hiking with an actual guide on an official hiking route was not really a good idea. What if a monster would decide to attack them for example? So they had decided to just take their own route and camp in between. Which wouldn’t be too complicated, Mount Washington was big enough for everyone after all. Right?  
But since they had taken the only bus that drove them from the border of Boston to this place in New Hampshire, they had to avoid getting caught by one of the guides. Even if they were only two einherjar by now. 

***********************

Since Mount Washington, or Agiocochook as some native Americans called it, is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States, and known for its weird weather, neither of our two hikers was surprised when the temperature dropped after lunch. They had packed for that case and if it would get too cold, Alex could turn into an animal with fur and Magnus wasn’t that sensitive about temperatures either.  
After Alex had waken up completely, the two of them had pretty much fun. While walking, they talked about their different hiking adventures and experiences and competed each other with guessing plant names and animal routes in their near surroundings. It felt good to skip the daily dying-and-being-ressurect-thing and just do something normal for once. Not being homeless, not being the child of a norse god, fighting monsters, not being an einherji and live in Hotel Valhalla, waiting for ragnarok. 

In the evening, they build up their tent on a clearing and made dinner. Okay, not really dinner, they grilled a few sausages and ate some sandwiches. Then they turned on Alex’ phone.  
In case something happened, they had been forced to promise to Sam that they would take a phone with them for emergencies. While Magnus went to get more fire wood, Alex waited for possible messages to get through the horrible ‘til non-existent connection.  
When he came back to their little camp though, Alex had put the phone away and looked as if she was pouting.  
Putting the wood down next to the fire so it could dry some more, the son of Frey asked: “Is everything alright?”  
Alex nodded but her eyes were fixed on the fire. The tension of her body told Magnus that he’d probably loose his head again if he’d ask any more question so he dropped the topic. Pulling out the map, he tried to figure out where they were and how they could avoid any hiking roots. 

After a while, Alex got herself something to read from her bag, a comic as it seemed.  
Looking up, Magnus asked curiously: “What are you reading there?”  
Not bothering to look up, the green haired one answered: “A manga. 'Disney Stitch!' volume one by Yumi Tsukirino if you need to know.”  
“For real? I didn’t know that there were manga of Stitch…”  
Now Alex looked up, one eyebrow raised. “You like Stitch?”  
“Yeah, I liked watching the show and I got myself a Lilo-and-Stitch-blanket with the first pocket money I got at Hotel Valhalla”, told Magnus, nodding eagerly.  
Alex hesitated for a while but then, she motioned for him to come closer. “If you don’t bother me, we can read it together…”  
That said, the map was forgotten for this evening. 

An hour later, the fire was slowly going down and the fire wood was empty, a sudden noise hat the two einherjar on alert. In the trees on their right side was something, something that moved very much but couldn’t be seen in the darkness that had been coming around by now. Closing his hand around Jack, Magnus got up a bit, ready to fight any monster. He hoped it would turn out to be a normal animal but you could never know. Alex had gotten up too, her hand looking for any weapon while her eyes followed Magnus line of view.  
That was when a black, flapping wave came out of the tree’s leaves, rushing over to them. Within seconds, the two where surrounded by even more darkness, darkness that was flapping and squeaking very loudly. Magnus had lost his grip around Jack, both him and Alex were too busy punching the air around them.  
“Shitty bats!”, screamed Alex and ripped one out of her hair and another one away from her neck. 

As fast as they had appeared, the bats left them alone again, out of breath and with at least five of their comrades dead on the ground. Shaking his body, Magnus tried to get rid of the feeling of bat claws all over his skin.  
“I think we should call it a night”, suggested the blonde and pulled the child of Loki away from a bat she was still hitting onto with her foot. She was very much out of breath and her expression was wild.  
Trying to gain her attention, Magnus grabbed her arms and shook her lightly. Which turned out to be a very bad idea since he found himself on the ground less then a second later, a very much agitated Alex sitting on his chest, his arms hold tight above his head.  
“Alex!”, Magnus called out, trying to get her to focus again – and let go of him of course.  
Blinking a few times, the pair of mismatching eyes locked with grey ones and Alex let go of his hands.  
“Sorry”, whispered the green haired one and got up, pulling a breathless Magnus with her. “Just, don’t do that ever again.”  
With that said, Alex grabbed her bag and crawled into her part of the tent – they had separated it into two parts with a large blanket for privacy. 

Standing there in the darkness, the dying fire in his back, Magnus tried to figure out if he had done anything wrong. He knew he tended to mess up things from time to time but honestly, who didn’t? Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have grabbed and shaken her. Maybe Alex was afraid of bats and the attack had triggered something? Or worse, he had triggered something?  
After hitting out the fire, Magnus followed Alex into their tent. After putting on some sleeping clothes, he crawled into his sleeping bag and curled together.  
Through the material of the tent he could hear the wind and the animals that were out hunting or doing their nightly business. He had always liked how alive it sounded. In the city, such noises were covered by traffic noises, people or something else. Outside in the woods, one could hear what everyone’s ancestors used to hear all day long until they settled down, build the first city and so on. 

“Alex?”, whispered Magnus but the other was either asleep or had chosen to ignore him. 

*****************************

The next day, Magnus got waken up by the sound and smell of burning eggs. Not burned eggs but perfectly made scrambled eggs. Yawning, the blonde got out of the tent and shivered slightly in the cold morning air. In front of him, Alex had lighten up the fire again and was busy preparing breakfast.  
“Morning”, greeted Magnus and walked over to see if he could help. Alex looked up, a smile on his face and a few leaves pointing out of his hair. Magnus couldn’t help but smile. Then he frowned.  
“From where did you get eggs?”  
The smile turned into a smirk and Alex huffed. “I got them right from the source if you need to know.”  
“Right from the…” Shaking his head, Magnus decided that he didn’t want to think about that any further but preferred to eat his breakfast instead. “Whatever. How are you feeling today?”  
“I’m full of energy and can’t wait for you lazy ass to get ready for more hiking”, teased Alex and held up a plate for Magnus.  
“Thanks”, said the other, took the plate and sat down on the driest place of grass he could find. While eating, he watched the child of Loki putting away the ingredients for cooking. He wasn’t sure if Alex had avoided his question about yesterday evening on purpose or not. But if the green haired one didn’t want to talk about it, Magnus wouldn’t push the topic. 

After breakfast, Magnus cleaned up his plate and got changed. Then they put together their tent and made sure that the fire was out. When they were ready to leave, Magnus noticed a leave that was still sticking to Alex’ hair. Without really thinking about it, the son of Frey reached out and pulled the green thing out of the green locks.  
“You missed one.”  
The look on Alex’ face frightened Magnus. He couldn’t tell if the other was angry because he had invaded his personal space or angry because of the slight blush that creeped over the other’s cheeks.  
Mumbling something that could be interpreted as an excuse, Magnus started to walk away as fast as possible without running away. At first he only felt the hot glare of the other on the back of his head but then he could hear the other joining him again. Letting out a silent sigh, Magnus made a mental note to think more before doing something. Not that he was sure that he would look onto his mental black board with all his mental notes. 

************************

In the early afternoon, the two hikers were forced to stop for that day because the sky had decided to offer them a heavy shower. It was pure luck that they found a little cave within the first half an hour because both of then doubted that their tent was waterproof enough to keep away such an amount of water.  
The rain created a little waterfall in front of the cave while they ate the fruits they had found today.  
“I don’t think it’ll stop any time soon”, said Magnus after a while, growing afraid that the water would flood the cave when getting too much. “Shouldn’t we look for a place to sleep?”  
“If you want to take a bath out there, feel free to do so. I’ll stay here though.”  
“But what if the water comes in here? Maybe this cave was created by water”, argued Magnus.  
“I doubt that. But if you’re right, we still can leave if it comes in here. But I think, this is perfect for now”, told Alex and laid down, head onto his bag.  
“Okay”, sighed Magnus. The other had a point. The cave wouldn’t be full of water within seconds and drown them after all. Suddenly he felt stupid for thinking like a little child. Throwing his last apple away, he turned around to pull out his sleeping bag and his Lilo-and-Stitch-blanket while Alex checked their phone.  
“Do you even get a connection in here?”, asked Magnus to change the topic. Two different eyes settled on him, a glint of mischief in them.  
“I dunno. But if not, would you be a darling and go out to look for a connection, Mag?”, asked Alex while batting his eye lashes at him.  
“Are you insane? No way”, huffed Magnus and pulled his blanket around himself.  
“Aaaw, put I think you’d make such a cute wet puppy”, teased the child of Loki when suddenly the sound of incoming messages interrupted them.

The first message was an update that told them about who had won today’s battle – nobody they knew – then they got a selfie from their floor while lunch and the third message was a private one from Samirah to Alex. While Alex read it, the smile slipped of his face and he angrily shut off his phone. For a second, Magnus was sure that Alex would throw it against the nearby wall but then he just put it away.  
“Everything okay?”, asked Magnus hesitantly, not sure if it was a good idea. Remembering yesterday, he asked himself if Alex had gotten a similar message that day too. What was it that made him this angry?  
“Yesss”, hissed Alex and turned away from him. 

A heavy, uncomfortable silent fell over them. Looking around the cave, Magnus wondered how it had gotten this big. There weren't any signs of animals digging their way or water washing it out. It was just… there, somehow. He was glad that there was a wall in their backs though because he doubted that he would have been able to sleep with the darkness of unknown territory behind them.  
“My mother would have loved this”, said Magnus as the silence got too much to stand. “She loved this kind of adventure, discovering new territories and such.”  
Alex hummed to sign that he was listening but didn’t say something else. Laying back down onto the ground, Magnus started to tell a few hiking stories about his mother and him – how they learned to catch fish and how they once had terrible stomach aches because they ate the wrong berries and so on and so on.  
In the end, they fell asleep one by one in silent harmony.

*******************

The next day was sunny and warm. They got up early because of a squirrel that tried to steal Magnus’ bag. After breakfast, they went on with their trip, their shoes soon full of the wet earth caused by the rainfall the evening before. Everything was fine until Alex checked his messages again. After that you could only talk to the child of Loki when in full body armour and not even that seemed to help against the angry glare Magnus got when saying something. 

“Could you please tell me how Sam manages to upset you this much? I would prefer for our evenings to be funny or at least comfy without us fighting for once”, said Magnus when Alex rejected to eat his part of dinner – scrambled eggs with mushrooms and berries for dessert.  
They had built up their tent on another clearing. Well, not really a clearing, more like a large space under the branches of a very old and very big tree but who cared about details?  
Instead of snarling and fighting against Magnus as the blonde had been expecting, Alex sighed and looked up from his place next to the fire.  
“I’m sorry, Magnus. My dear cousin is just… teasing me about something I really don’t like to talk about”, explained the green haired one, golden and brown eyes full of swallowed anger and slight guilt.  
“What could she tease you with that you react this kind of way?”, wondered Magnus and sat down next to the other, pushing Alex’ dinner onto Alex’ lap and reaching for his own. Alex took the plate and started to push the food around with his fork. A slight blush seemed to creep over his face but it could have been caused by the fire too.

“I swear, if you tell anyone, I’ll end you, Chase. For real”, promised the child of Loki and locked eyes with Magnus.  
Raising his hands in defence, Magnus promised: “I won’t tell anyone. I swear by the grave of my mother.”  
Nodding pleased, Alex took a bite of his food, moaning at the taste. “’s really good!”  
“Thanks”, said Magnus, looking down to hide his face to not show Alex how happy this compliment made him. He had learned how to cook like this from his mother after all. Even within the years on the street he had managed to keep his knowledge and skills and he was proud of it. For a while they ate in silence. Then, Alex started to talk again.

“There’s… someone I like. I told Samirah and now she’s all weird about it.”  
Frowning, Magnus tried to dig a bit deeper. “Why would she be weird about it?”  
Shaking his head, Alex answered: “She’s like ‘tell him, you need to tell him’ and all that shit.”  
“A guy…”, mumbled Magnus, not really knowing he was talking. His thoughts were busy trying to figure out who it was that Alex might like. Maybe T.J.? The former soldier had always been nice to their newest floor mate. But so had been Halfborn. But Halfborn was somehow-kind-off-secretly dating Mallory…

Suddenly, Magnus was tackled to the ground, an angry Alex sitting on his stomach.  
“What is wrong with that? Can’t I like another guy? I’m female too after all!” And just like that, something seemed to shift inside Alex and he turned into his female form.  
“NO! No, that’s not… of course it’s okay”, stammered Magnus and would have raised his arms in defeat if it had been possible. Which it wasn’t because Alex was sitting on them.  
“Really, I just didn’t know you liked someone, that’s all!”, continued Magnus as he saw the doubt in those mismatching eyes. “I’m not judging you in any kind of way, really!"  
Alex squinted her eyes. “Don’t lye at me, Chase!”  
“I do not”, declared the son of Frey. He squirmed beneath the child of Loki to get free but if Alex wouldn’t have chosen that moment to let go of him, he might have been stuck like that forever.  
“Whatever”, mumbled Alex, suddenly emotionless. She took her plate and went to clean it. 

When she returned, she ignored any attempt of Magnus to start a conversation. Instead, she took out a bottle with golden liquid out of her bag and took a sip, making a face.  
Staring with wide eyes, Magnus asked: “Is that…?”  
“Whiskey, yes. Want some?”, answered Alex, taking another big sip from the bottle. It didn’t look as if she had drunk much from it but the bottle looked like the one’s you bought in the supermarket at the counter – very small and with strong alcohol.  
“No, I don’t like whiskey”, denied Magnus. “And you shouldn’t drink too much either. I think it’ll get very cold tonight.”  
“Stop mother-henning me, Chase!”  
“Really? Are we at this point already? Listen, I don’t have anything against you liking a guy or a girl or a car or whatever, okay? I was just curious because I didn’t know and I get that you might have gotten much shit about you being genderfluid and whatnot! But I haven’t done anything wrong so please stop giving me shit about it! Good night!”

With that, Magnus got up and went to sleep. Maybe that wasn’t the right way to deal with this situation, but right now, with him being angry, nothing would come clear. Part of Magnus was also hurt because Alex thought of him like he was one of those intolerant assholes and didn’t trust him enough to tell him about such things. He had been awkward when they first met, yes, but mainly because he had never heard of someone like Alex before.  
But when he had gotten to know Alex, he thought the child of Loki was pretty cool and a nice person – if she wasn’t busy killing him that is. He would even go as far as to admit that he really liked the other. And why wouldn’t he?  
Alex Fierro was strong, funny, granted a bit crazy but when you are a child of the norse gods, being normal wasn’t normal at all. And she also had a soft and sensitive side which one would see after digging deeper than the pink-green warning colours allowed. But Magnus had never thought about the other in the romantic kind of way…  
Crawling into his sleeping bag, Magnus curled together and closed his eyes. Even if he couldn’t sleep he would at least try to get some rest. There were only two days left of their hiking vacation and he wanted to enjoy those. Why wasn’t there a switch to keep his thoughts silent and his mouth shut?

************************

At some point, Magnus must have fallen asleep because when he opened his eyes, the fire outside was out and it was very silent. And cold. Shivering, Magnus reached out for his Lilo-and-Stitch-blanket when he heard something. At first, he couldn’t identify the noise but when he listened more closely, he knew what it was – sobbing. Someone was crying. And with someone, Magnus meant Alex.  
He hesitated for a moment but when the sound of clicking teeth added itself to the sobbing, Magnus mumbled a slight curse and lifted the blanket that separated their tent. 

Alex was curled together in her sleeping bag, her jacket pulled over her head and a hoody at her back. When Magnus came closer, the figure under the makeshift bed stiffened and a pair of glowing eyes peeked out from the jacket’s opening.  
“What do you think you’re doing?”, hissed the owner of said eyes when she noticed Magnus.  
“I’m cold. I need you to warm me up or I’ll freeze to death”, explained Magnus because he knew that the other was way too proud to admit that she was cold. For a second, it seemed as if Alex would send him away but then, she just grabbed his blanket and pulled him closer.  
For a while, they were busy looking for a warming and comfortable position but when they found it, Magnus did his best to keep quiet. As much as he wanted to know why Alex had been crying, he did not want to repeat what had happened a few hours ago.

“… I’m sorry”, whispered Alex after a while, voice almost too low to be heard.  
“It’s okay, I’m still alive after all”, answered Magnus equally silent. He raised his head to look at Alex. In the darkness, it was hard to see something else aside from her glowing eyes. Sometimes it was pretty handy to be a child of the shape shifting trickster god. Thankfully Alex had decided to wear cat eyes instead of wolf eyes.  
“No, I… this is all this complicated”, complained Alex, burying her head on Magnus’ chest.  
“I know. Well, no, I don’t since I’ve never been in a relationship before. But honestly, whoever it is, he can be proud that you like him this much”, said Magnus, even though he didn’t feel too comfortable with this.  
He was a mess on his own at the moment. Before he had fallen asleep, all he had been able to think of was Alex and he didn’t know where that came from all of a sudden. This was not how it was supposed to be, right? Normally, you would get to know someone and then just fall for the other or become friends, right? Then there was this love-at-the-first-sight-thing. But not the Alex-loves-someone-so-I-need-to-fall-for-her-jealousy-thing!  
“… do you really think so?”  
“Yes. You’re funny and strong and clever. And you rocked this wedding dress”, counted Magnus, remembering how beautiful the other had looked in that white dress and all. 

That was when he got hit. “Stop complementing me!”  
“Fine. I was just telling the truth though”, said Magnus, a smile tugging on his lips because he had managed to fluster Alex. He immediately stopped smiling when he remembered that she could currently see in the dark. It was useless, because he got punched again, though this time not as hard.  
“For real now! Why do you have to say things like that? Why do you have to be like that?”  
Frowning, Magnus looked up to Alex who knelt next to him now, eyes wide open. “Like what?”  
“How do you always manage to say the right things? You upset me, you comfort me, you make me think stupid things, you always seem to know which gender I currently am… stop it!”, hissed Alex. “Stop making me feel like this!”  
The frown on Magnus’ face deepened even more as the words sank in. Did Alex really say what he was thinking the other had said? She didn’t, right?  
Magnus opened his mouth but nothing came out. He felt weightless somehow and he wasn’t sure if he liked this unknown feeling. Alex had stopped hitting him, eyes fixed onto his still balled fists. “Stop making me fall for you…”  
Magnus almost didn’t catch those last few words but he would forever be grateful that he did. Getting up on his elbows, Magnus reached out to grab one of Alex’ fists.  
“Really?”, asked the son of Frey, his voice trembling with emotions and the fear that he had interpreted this wrong in any kind of way.  
Alex looked up, his eyes shining somehow and slowly, the child of Loki nodded. The feelings that rushed through Magnus’ body when he saw that simple movement had him out of breath within seconds and a part of him thought that if love was like this, then it couldn’t be too healthy but the majority of his mind was too busy being happy to care. That was when he noticed that he hadn’t told Alex! Without really thinking about it, Magnus jumped up – if you could say so when getting up in a kneeling position within seconds – and wrapped his arms around the other’s neck, startling him. 

“I don’t know how and why now, but I’m really happy”, said Magnus, voice hoarse from how much he felt at once.  
“Wha….?”, asked Alex, body tense and confusion clearly in his voice.  
Letting go, Magnus grabbed Alex’ hands instead, linking their fingers and locking eyes. “I think, … no, I’m pretty much sure that I really like you too, Alex Fierro”, said the blonde in a serious manner.  
“You… do? Even though I’m not always a girl? Would you even like me as a… guy?”  
There was so much fear in this question that it made Magnus heart clench hard. Of course Alex would ask things like that with what he had been through – shitty father and stepmother, the life on the streets, rejection from society… and that was just what Alex had told by now, certainly only the tip of the iceberg.  
Thinking that maybe acting was better than talking right now, Magnus got up and brought their lips together for the very first time. For a second, Alex was very tense and uncertain but then he seemed to melt into the kiss and soon took the lead. 

In the end, they just cuddled and kissed once in a while, both of them to overwhelmed from how things turned out that night. There would be much talking needed and much work as in any new relationship but both were eager to make this work.  
And maybe, Alex would send Samirah a picture in the morning with the two of them kissing, Magnus' awesome blanket wrapped around them both, but who knows?

*End*

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, please tell me what you think!
> 
> Aaand, I found a beautiful picture on tumblr that's very fitting. Check it out, if you want!
> 
> http://cookiecreation.tumblr.com/image/165845595938


End file.
